The Johnny Cash depicted in the touring musical “Million Dollar Quartet” isn't the Man in Black.

“It's one slice, one time, of his life,” said David Elkins, who plays Cash in the show. “In our show, he's a 24-year-old kid who grew up picking cotton in Arkansas.”

Likewise, the Elvis Presley in the show isn't yet the King of Rock 'n' Roll.

“He was 21 years old, and this was the young rebel,” said Cody Slaughter, who plays Elvis. “This was the time when the world was just falling in love with him. It's very different than how it became.

“He was a human being, he was a country boy. I try to bring that across — who was Elvis the person, not just the image.”

The show, which makes its first appearance at the Majestic Theatre beginning Tuesday, re-creates a real-life recording session that happened early in the careers of legends-to-be Cash, Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Carl Perkins. Happenstance brought them together at the Sun Studio in Memphis on Dec. 4, 1956, and they ended up jamming for a while.

The show includes “Blue Suede Shoes, “Don't Be Cruel,” “Folsom Prison Blues,” “See You Later Alligator,” “Great Balls of Fire” and lots of gospel.

The actors do all their own playing. That's a point of pride for Elkins.

“People come up to us afterward and say they don't believe it's really us playing,” he said. “We take that as a compliment. We must be doing all right if they don't think it's us. There are no (recorded) tracks and no fakin'.”

Audiences typically start out pretty reserved, Slaughter said.

“By the end, I swear to you, people are on their feet — 3,000, 4,000 people out there, every single one is standing up and dancing and screaming bloody murder,” he said. “That's why the world fell in love with (the musicians). It was an escape, it was a release.

“We can't come close to those guys. We'll do the best we can, but we can't come close to those guys.”

Getting the chance to try is a big honor, Elkins said.

“We realize that we're conduits to the love and affection people already have for these guys,” he said. “We feel the same love and affection for these guys and this music.”